Paint it Black
by Summer Cadence
Summary: With the haunting ability to paint murder, Kaoru is a lethal weapon for the Empire. Years ago, her assignment was the dreaded Battousai; torn between duty and love, she kills him. Now, Himura Kenshin is a familiar image of the one she once loved...


**.n o t e s.** Just a random impulse I had at about 4 a.m. I've not seen many Fantasy/Supernatural Rurouni Kenshin stories out there, so I took a shot at it. This is the result. Please tell me what you think—I don't expect it to be very popular. This is kind of the prologue, just to see if I like where this story is headed.

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**.f u l l . s u m m a r y.** Kaoru's mysterious—and haunting—ability to paint a person's soul and dispose of it with an unnamed power enables her to become a lethal assassin for the Empire: one without a blade, yet with all of its malice. Ten years ago, her assignment was to murder the soul of one of the most feared assassins of the time: Hitokiri Battousai, the man she had fallen in love with. Now, however, she catches a glimpse of a different man, strangely familiar; one named Himura Kenshin...

**.w a r n i n g s.** Lots of death, angst, contemplation, choppiness, and junk like that. The characters will most likely be out of character for story purposes.

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When I was younger, I painted a picture for my father.

I adored the grassy hills of the countryside, the layered sunset of dappled rose extending beyond an infinite distance. In the far horizon, the lake sparkled with clarity, the skeletal trees austerely barren, but the foliage of autumn sprinkled about the ground. My father took me into his lap as I pointed eagerly. "See, isn't it a beautiful picture, Daddy? Isn't it beautiful?"

He stared at it for a long moment. "Yes, it is beautiful, Kaoru, my child." I looked up at him in dismay. He guided my fingers about the surface of the canvas, swathed in all the acrylic paint's opaque and translucent wonder. The mint-green, the golden yellow, the lavender sky—without a word, we touched it all.

"So, what's wrong with it, Daddy? Why aren't you smiling? Don't you like it?"

"It is beautiful. Yes, it is beautiful." His voice was distant, breathless, numbing. He shook his head sadly and stroked my face, my eyes of sapphire wide in innocent question as he took my own small hands in his. "But Kaoru, no matter what colors you hide it with...you cannot love something that has no _soul_."

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_. chapter I ._

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**.p h a n t a s m a g o r i a.**

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**phan-tas-ma-go-ri-a :** _noun_. **1.** a fantastic sequence of haphazardly associated imagery, as seen in dreams or fever. **2.** a constantly changing scene composed of numerous elements.  
**3.** fantastic imagery as represented in art.

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"This is where you're painting?"

She sat at the far end of the park, surrounded only by lonely maple trees in autumn's wake, on a wooden bench too empty for a single person but too small for a pair. Strands of azure-ebony fell around her shoulders, cascading down her back and tumbling near her face; bottomless sapphire eyes downcast on her hands.

Hesitantly, she looked up, dropping her bag of paints and canvases on the grass, making no reply. The boy who had spoken watched as she shakily extracted her supplies: her paintbrush, her paints, thin canvas fabric stretched about a rosewood frame. Long, mahogany locks tied curtly spilled behind his back, his thin arms crossing as he tapped his foot nearly impatiently.

Her voice was quiet, nearly trembling as she spoke.

"Can I paint you?" she asked, eyes still adverted from his amber gaze.

An awkward silence pervaded between them: the boy's cold golden eyes wavered for a moment at such a request, his frosty facade broken so easily by her voice. "Paint me?" he repeated. "What—why?"

Without a word, she stood the canvas on the bench and kneeled down, uncapping several of her paints. He waited, eyeing the vivid hues of crimson and gold, of turquoise and violet, of pastel colors and deep shades of green. Though her back was to his gaze, he could hear it distinctly: the small choked sobs, the peeps, the stifled noises she was trying so hard not to make.

"Are you all right, Kaoru?" he asked, awkwardly reaching out. "Why are..."

She clasped her hand over her mouth as her voice released a slow, mournful wail of anguish. Within the silence, she had thrown herself into his arms, weeping into his shoulder, hiccupping, sobbing; tears of agony staining her perfect face. Tentatively—instinctively—he embraced her back with calloused hands, murmuring into her ear, holding her pain in his hands without quite knowing the reason why: _It's alright_.

"Can I paint you...?" she asked again.

He touched her face gently; without any questions, without needing reason, he nodded. And he smiled, awkwardly—genuinely, lamely rubbing his neck and stepping back. "I'm not sure I'll make such a great model, though—"

She swallowed—the blood bitter in her throat as she wiped her eyes. "It's okay," she said quietly. "Just sit over there or something...I don't mind if you fall asleep."

He nodded again, leaning back against the august maple tree. The afternoon sun overhead cast the place in its incandescent radiance, its warmth eerily artificial in the gossamer sky. She sang no song as she hastily sketched the first of his outline, the opaque traces of the pencil illuminating the awkwardness of his being—one of so many contradictions and beauties—onto canvas. She slowly drew the contours of his face, every recess of his skin dipping into the gaunt hollowness of his bones; the beautifully haunting scar on his face, the emptiness and entity of his mesmerizing eyes.

He was silent; once he had cast a sidelong glance at her, and she smiled weakly at him. "I'm finished drawing you," she said softly. His face broke into a genuine smile, and she had to turn away to keep her tears. She held the paintbrush above the surface of the canvas and stopped, hesitant, her fingers shaking. Eyes closed, her hand became tentative as she allowed it to dance across the canvas, the first hints of color splashed across it.

She spoke to him once keep him awake as the sun began to descend behind the trees, minutes spinning slowly into hours. "When I paint you," she said, attempting conversation, "I feel...different colors, you know?"

"Really," he said, seriously. "What colors?"

Kaoru's face remained solemn, devoid of emotion, as the paintbrush in her hand slid across the surface of the canvas. "Beautiful, heart-wrenching...stubborn, sorrowful colors..." she smiled. "Like a child. A very _sad_ child." Tears were streaming down her face, though distance kept him from seeing. "Crimson, a little blue, a little bit of green and scarlet...and gray." She dipped the paintbrush into the water. "Strange..." she murmured. _A soul of nearly nothing but grays..._

"Kaoru?"

She did not answer; smearing the paint with the brush, tasting the foulness of her own tears as the paint became miscible on the very canvas that had once been white, biting her lip as the paint dripped onto her lap.

"It's done," she said, faintly.

He smiled again, taking the portrait into his arms. "Thank you," he said sincerely, and stood, holding out his hand. "Let's go home now, Kaoru."

She wiped her face and nodded, taking his outstretched hand. Gathering her supplies, she held his hand through evening, the cool November air caressing them both. Kaoru closed her eyes and wept, silently: _Don't you feel something?_ she wanted to scream. _Don't you know what kind of a person I am?_

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, when they reached her apartment. His amber eyes laughed—a child's laugh—as he held her hand tightly and kissed her forehead.

"Is something bothering you, Kaoru?"

She shook her head and took his hand, placing it against her lips, closing her eyes with tears threatening to escape again. "If only things...could have been different..." Her voice faded. She forced herself to look away as he stepped back, her painting still in his hands.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kaoru," he said gently. "You needn't tell me if you don't want to." He stroked her face and turned away, disappearing behind the elevator doors.

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She remembered standing there numbly, soundlessly collapsing to her knees, her cell phone ringing from her purse.

"_Kamiya?"_ The voice was curt. _"Update. We've given you enough time already; you've been stalling for much too long now."_ Precariously, she reached out and picked up the cold metal phone. "_Is Battousai out of the picture now?"_

Her voice speaking suddenly did not belong to her. "He'll...he'll be gone by tomorrow morning," she heard herself saying, distantly.

"_You're certain of this?_"

"Yes." She struggled to maintain her voice.

There was a silence on the other end of the line. "_Listen, Kamiya. This isn't the first mission where your extraordinary abilities have been desperately needed. You need to understand that the Empire—the fate of this country—needs you. Petty rebellions like that the Battousai has joined with will become the fallacy of this country, and we cannot let this nation crumble. Do you understand? What you are doing is most certainly not _wrong_."_

Her throat was strangled as she spoke. "I know."

"_Do you promise me you won't stop after this assignment?"_

There was a pause, and then, "Yes. I promise."

"_You are most certainly a brave young woman. Your father would have been very proud."_ The voice was monotonous, riddled in discreet concern. "_We do appreciate all you've done for us, Kamiya. Never forget that._" The line went dead.

"Thank you, sir," Kaoru whispered to an empty line. She covered her mouth. She didn't trust herself not to scream aloud. Closing her eyes, she rocked back and forth, back and forth, perilously on her heels. _I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry._

For the last time that night, in all her utter shame and sorrow and agony, she buried her face in her knees and wept.

They found him dead the next morning.

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**.e n d.** Yes, I know it was confusing. I'll fill in the blanks in the chapters to come—this was just kind of the general background information. xx

Please tell me what you think. I don't mind flames on this one.


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